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from our governor to the council at Onondaga, he called at the habitation of Canasetego, an old acquaintance, who embraced him, spread furs for him to sit on, placed before him some boiled beans and venison, and mixed some rum and water for his drink. When he was well refreshed, and had lit his pipe, Canasetego began to converse with him; asked him how he had fared the many years since they had seen each other, whence he then came, what occasioned the journey, &c., &c. Conrad answered all his questions; and, when the discourse began to flag, the Indian, to continue it, said;"Conrad, you have lived long among the white people, and know something of their customs. I have been sometimes at Albany, and have observed that once in seven days they shut up their shops, and assemble all in the great house; tell me, what is it for ?" "They meet there," said Conrad, "to hear and learn good things." "I do not doubt," said the Indian, "that they tell you so; they have told me the same; but I doubt the truth of what they say: I will tell you my reasons. I went lately to Albany to sell my skins, and buy blankets, knives, powder, rum, &c. You know I used generally to deal with Hans Hanson, but I was a little inclined this time to try some other merchants: however, I called first upon Hans, and asked him what he would give for beaver. He said he would not give more than four shillings a pound; but,' said he, I cannot talk on business now; this is together to learn good things, and I am going to the meeting.' So I thought to myself, since we cannot do any business to day, I may as well go to the meeting too; and I went with him. There stood up a man in black, and began to talk to the people very angrily. I did not understand what he said; but, perceiving that he looked much at me and at Hanson, I imagined he was angry at seeing me there; so I went out, sat down near the house, struck fire, and lit my pipe, waiting till the meeting broke up. I thought, too, that the man had mentioned something of beaver, and I suspected it might be the subject of their meeting. So, when they came out, I accosted my merchant: 'Well, Hans,' said I, 'I hope you have agreed to give more than four shillings a pound!' No,' said he, I cannot give so much; I cannot give more than three shillings and sixpence.' I then spoke to several other dealers, but they all sung the same song

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the day when we meet

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'three and sixpence-three and sixpence.' This made it clear to me that my suspicion was right; and that, whatever they pretend of meeting to learn good things, the real purpose is, to consult how to cheat Indians in the price of beaver. Consider but a little, Conrad, and you must be of my opinion. If they meet so often to learn good things, they would certainly have learnt some before this time; but they are still ignorant. You know our practice; if a white man, in travelling through our country, enters one of our cabins, we all treat him as I treat you; we dry him if he is wet, we warm him if he is cold, we give him meat and drink, that he may allay his thirst and hunger, and spread soft furs for him to rest and sleep on. We demand nothing in return. But, if I go into a white man's house at Albany, and ask for victuals and drink, they say, 'Where is your money?' and, if I have none, they say, 'Get out, you Indian dog!' You see they have not yet learnt those little good things that we need no meetings to be instructed in, because our mothers taught them to us, when we were children; and, therefore, it is impossible their meetings should be, as they say, for any such purpose, or have any such effect: they are only to contrive the cheating of Indians in the price of beaver

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145. THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD IN 1780.

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BURKE.

[IT has been justly said by Mr. Craik, in his admirable "Sketches of Literature and Learning in England," that "Burke was our first, and is still our greatest, writer on the philosophy of practical politics. * The writings of Burke are, indeed, the only English political writings of a past age that continue to be read in the present. And they are now, perhaps, more studied, and their value, both philosophical and oratorical, better and more highly appreciated than even when they were first produced." Of the justness of these remarks, the extracts which we give will furnish an example. It is a part of a celebrated speech on the economical reformation of the Civil and other Establishments-a subject which in itself now posseses only an historical interest, for the abuses of which it complains have been long ago swept away. But see, how in the hands of this great philosophical orator, what was tempo"ary and partial becomes permanent and universal. We may add, in the

words of the judicious critic just quoted, "If it was objected to him in his own day, that too deep for his hearers,' he

'still went on refining,

And thought of convincing while they thought of dining;'

that searching philosophy, which pervades his speeches and writings, and is there wedded in such happy union to glowing words and poetic imagery, has rescued them alone from the neglect and oblivion that have overtaken all the other oratory and political pamphleteering of that day, however more loudly lauded at the time, and has secured to them an existence as extended as that of the language." The public life of Edmund Burke belongs to history. He was born Dublin in 1730, came to London in 1750, became a member of the House of Commons in 1766, and died in 1797.]

I come next to the great supreme body of the civil government itself. I approach it with that awe and reverence with which a young physician approaches to the case of the disorders. of his parent. Disorders, Sir, and infirmities, there are such disorders, that all attempts towards method, prudence, and frugality will be perfectly vain, whilst a system of confusion remains, which is not only alien, but adverse to all economy; a system, which is not only prodigal in its very essence, but causes every thing else which belongs to it to be prodigally conducted.

It is impossible, Sir, for any person to be an economist where no order in payments is established; it is impossible for a man to be an economist who is not able to take a comparative view of his means, and of his expenses, for the year which lies before him; it is impossible for a man to be an economist under whom various officers, in their several departments, may spend,-even just what they please,-and often with an emulation of expense, as contributing to the importance, if not profit, of their several departments. Thus much is certain, that neither the present nor any other first lord of the treasury, has been ever able to take a survey, or to make even a tolerable guess, of the expenses of gov. ernment for any one year, so as to enable him with the least degree of certainty, or even probability, to bring his affairs within compass. Whatever scheme may be formed upon them must be made on a calculation of chances. As things are circumstanced, the first lord of the treasury cannot make an estimate. I am sure I serve the king, and I am sure I assist the administration, by putting economy at least in their power. We must class services;

we must (as far as their nature admits) appropriate funds; or every thing, however reformed, will fall again into the old confusion.

Coming upon the ground of the civil list, the first thing in dignity and charge that attracts our notice is the royal household. This establishment, in my opinion, is exceedingly abusive in its constitution. It is formed upon manners and customs that have long since expired. In the first place, it is formed, in many respects, upon feudal principles. In the feudal times it was not uncommon, even among subjects, for the lowest offices to be held by considerable persons-persons as unfit by their incapacity, as improper from their rank, to occupy such employments. They were held by patent, sometimes for life, and sometimes by inheritance. If my memory does not deceive me, a person of no slight consideration held the office of patent hereditary cook to an Earl of Warwick. The Earl of Warwick's soups, I fear, were not the better for the dignity of his kitchen. I think it was an Earl of Gloucester who officiated as steward of the household to the Archbishops of Canterbury. Instances of the same kind may, in some degree, be found in the Northumberland house-book and other family records. There was some reason, in ancient necessities, for these ancient customs. Protection was wanted; and the domestic tie, though not the highest, was the closest.

The king's household has not only several strong traces of this feudality, but it is formed also upon the principles of a body corporate; it has its own magistrates, courts, and by-laws. This might be necessary in the ancient times, in order to have a government within itself, capable of regulating the vast and unruly multitude which composed and attended it. This was the origin of the ancient court called the Green Cloth, composed of the marshal, treasurer, and other great officers of the household, with certain clerks. The rich subjects of the kingdom (only on a reduced scale) have since altered their economy; and turned the course of their expense from the maintenance of vast establishments within their walls to the employment of a great variety of independent trades abroad. Their influence is lessened; but a mode of accommodation, and a style of splendor, suited to the manners of the times, has been increased. Royalty itself has

insensibly followed; and the royal household has been carried away by the resistless tide of manners, but with this material difference-private men have got rid of the establishments along with the reasons of them; whereas the royal household has lost all that was stately and venerable in antique manners, without retrenching any thing of the cumbrous charge of a Gothic establishment. It is shrunk into the polished littleness of modern elegance and personal accommodation; it has evaporated from the gross concrete into an essence and rectified spirit of expense, where you have tuns of ancient pomp in a vial of modern luxury.

But when the reason of old establishments is gone it is absurd to preserve nothing but the burthen of them. This is superstitiously to embalm a carcass not worth an ounce of the gums that are used to preserve it. It is to burn precious oils in the tomb; it is to offer meat and drink to the dead,—not so much an honor to the deceased as a disgrace to the survivors. Our palaces are vast inhospitable halls. There the bleak winds, there "Boreas, and Eurus, and Caurus, and Argestes loud," howling through the vacant lobbies, and clattering the doors of deserted guard-rooms, apall the imagination, and conjure up the grim spectres of departed tyrants--the Saxon, the Norman, and the Dane; the stern Edwards and fierce Henries-who stalk from desolation to desolation, through the dreary vacuity and melancholy succession of chill and comfortless chambers. When this tumult subsides, a dead and still more frightful silence would reign in this desert, if every now and then the tacking of hammers did not announce that those constant attendants upon all courts in all ages, jobs, were still alive; for whose sake alone it is that any trace of ancient grandeur is suffered to remain. These palaces are a true emblem of some governments; the inhabitants are decayed, but the governors and magistrates still flourish. They put me in mind of Old Sarum, where the representatives, more in number than the constituents, only serve to inform us that this was once a place of trade, and sounding with "the busy hum of men," though now you can only trace the streets by the color of the corn; and its sole manufacture is in members of parliament.

These old establishments were formed also on a third principle, still more adverse to the living economy of the age. They

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